2
PROFILE
BE
August 1977 Vol. 6 No.8
Edwin Kiester, Jr., is a contribut-
ing editor to HUMAN BEHAVIOR.
I ask the man
who has almost singlehandedly re-
awakened West ern interest In the
ancient tradition of Su!i5m whether
Sufis follow a special diet.
Three hours of talking with Shah and
a generous sample of his writings hould
have taught me that Suns concern them-
selves with internal mailers. not ex-
ternal ones. and that a prime Sufi
objective is to rid people of just the kind
of preconceived notions and limited
thinking I had just display~d. I should
also know that ill -informed questions
make Shoh's beard bristle.
"A Sufi lifestyle. is it?" heasks. spac·
ing the words out evenly for emphasis.
"No. my friend. not a bit of it. That's
what people crave. That's what they
demand. Recently another man come to
interview me. and his first question
was. 'What do Sufis eat? You're vege·
tartans. of course.' 'No.' I said. 'You
amaze me!' he said.
"I said to him. 'Now if I can be of any
use to you. write that down and sec
what it means. What II means Is that
you have been able to elicit from me a
reaction which helps you to describe
yourself. 'You amaze me.' Why do I
amaze you? I amaze because you think
that all metaph ysicians must be vegc·
tnrians. Does that tell you anything
about me? No. It tells you things about
yourself! Now when aro you going to
get out of that, and learn things about
yourself, and not think that you're learn-
ing things about other people?"
Shah leans forward. gesturing with
the knife and fork.
"We arc nottotemists who eat brown
rice and consult the I Ching. That is not
theSu!i at all, my friend. We have other
things to do than have u lifestyle. We
are getting on with our thJng. And our
thing does not impose on us the sort of
restrictions which other people use as a
substitute for getting on with their
Photoarapht by Jean·Ciaude Le(tune
Grand
Sheikh
of the
Sufis
by EDWIN KIESTER. JR.
thing. You can either do something. or
you can pretend to be doing something.
"Western society seems to have ex·
hausted all its i.n vesligative potential.
It is largely composed of cui-de-sacs.
One cul-de-snc is marked Lifestyle: one
is marked Vegetarianism, and so on.
People want to know about the Sufis
in terms of what limitations they ob-
serve. 'What do you eat for breakfast?'
'How many pairs of socks do you wear?'
"What is the relevance of such ques-
tions? Why don't they ask something
about what I am doing? One of our tra-
ditional functions has been to point out
the limitations other people have been
putting on themselves. not to impose
limitations on other people. That's what
the gurus do. We seek to expand. in-
crease vision. deepi)n perception. You
don'tllve by decreasing these qualities.
"That's why you don't find any life-
style with us. brother. There's no eating
of brown rice, ond no muttering of San·
skrit mantras in our way."
Over the past 15 years, Sayyed !dries
Shah. 53. the grand sheikh of the Sufis
and a lineal descendant of the prophet
Mohammed, has had myriad opportun-
it ies to learn how little the West knows
about Sufism-and how much it yearns
to know. Since his book The Sufis was
published in 1963. the lean. intense.
Afghan-born prince has been propelled
Into international celebrity. sought
on lecture plot forms all over the world.
Twenty more books have followed the
first, and all have been bought up
eagerly: Sufi "study circles" have pro-
liferated (often without Shah's bless-
ing) across the United States and Europe;
courses in Sufism are the "in" thing
at colleges and universities; Sufi theories
of learning have influenced educational
institutions everywhere. Shah himself
has won a host of literary prizes and
recently was the subject of a festschrift.
o collection of published commentaries
by 24 renowned scholars discussing his
work-an honor usually reserved for a
professor emeritus of 70 who has been
tending his scholarly vineyard for 50
years. One small sample of Sha h's im·
poet can be seen in his recent appearance
at a U.S. seminar sponsored by the
Institute for the Study of Human KnowI·
edge. Twelve hundred persona turned
out to hear him. at $65 a pop.
Ironically. the "product" Shah is
"peddling"- to use his term-Is any-
thing but new. The Sufis are often called
"Muslim mystics.'' but their roots go
much deeper than Islam. In that cradle
of the world's great religions, the Middle
East. Sufi influence has been traced
back to the second &entury e.c. and is
said to have crossfertiliud Hinduism.
Christianity and Judaism along with
the followers of Mohammed. In the
golden days of thecallphs, from o\.D. 800
to 1800. many of the world's great
writers and thinkers were Sufis. They
included Omar J<hayyam and Jala ed-Din
Rumi. considered one of the titans of
world literature: long befont Einstein
and Darwin, Sufis theorized that time
and space were identical and that
huma.n s had ascended from lower ani·
mals. One of the West's own great minds
was a Su fi. The Franciscan Roger
Bacon, considered the originator of
modern scientific thought, studied with
the Sufis in Saracen Spain. It was for
learning their "black arts" that he ran
afoul of oocleslastical authority.
Exp la ining Sufism to a word-oriented.
llnear-thinking Westerner is difficult
even for an articulate a nd insightful
man such as Shah. "He who tastes not.
knows not: he says. quotingjala ed-Din
Rumi. Although there are said to be
five million Sufis. mostly affiliated
with established sects, Shah says that
Sufism is "not a religion but n body of
knowledge"; the sects represent a "de-
terioration" or "cultural elaboration
of the original internal teaching." Sufism
has no rituals, no holy city and no ec-
clesiastical hierarchy. Although Shah
carries the title grand sheikh. all Sufis
are considered equal. Poet Robert
Graves. a Shah admirer, compares him
to a "fugleman." which Graves defines
as an old army term for the soldier who
stood before a company on the parade
ground ond served as the exemplar In
arms drill. Sufis do not even call them·
selves Sufis. which is a nickname akin
to Quakers. They use the terms We
friends or Our people.
Genuine Sufism is inward. concern-
HUMAN RettAVIOR. AUIJU&t 1917 25
 "If you really want to see Shah's beard bristle,
suggest that Sufism is part of the
yoga- and-transcendental-meditation craze."
ing itself with "t rue reality-what exists
beyond what is obse•·ved." Like peeling
an on ion. Sufism tries to strip away
the outer layers of limi ted thinking.
misconception and social conditioning
to disclose the kernel that lies beneath-
that unity of ex istence that Shah calls
"the essence of all religion ." Sufism's
goal i~ to reorganize human mentation
so that it is more sensitive to things
that are there anyway-"We say in
Sufism that exclusion is just as impor-
tant as inclusion," Shah says. You can
gain Sufi truths from other people and
by intuition, insight. folk wisdom and
experience. Long before the work on
brain hemispheres of Dr. Robert E.
Ornstein, the Sufis knew that part of
the brain learned through words ar-
ranged in sequence and the other part
by hunchP.s and selling the whole situa-
tion at once.
Of course. over the past two decades.
literally dozens of mystical. quasi-
mystical and semimystical Eastern
sects have invaded the West. If you
really want to see Shah's beard bristle.
suggest that Sufism is part of the yoga-
and-transcendental -meditation craze.
"That gray area of mumbo jumbo and
guru s and mantras," he says, bitingly.
"It has little connection with any tra·
dition except the circus. In Eastern
countries like India that is fairly well
understood. Only the 'new boys' profess
to see anything significant in the phe-
nomenon. But here the carnival has
taken over. We have a grotesque of the
true Indian guru ." He also has a few
disparaging words for Zen. "No Sufi
would ever think it importan t to think
of a phrase like, 'What is the sound of
one hand clapping?' He would regard it
as training for automatism. You wou ld
obsess people with one hand." The Sufi
has nothing in common, either. with
groups that seek to withdraw from the
world. "Be in the world, hut not of it,"
is the Sufi watchwoo·d.
When I firs t met Shah. he struck me
as anything but the stereotype of the
Eastern holy man. He greeted me in a
red turtleneck sweater. glen-plaid
slacks, magenta socks and calfskin
sandals. He speaks Oxford-accented
English with a rich vocabulary and a
range of expression that is stunning
in its scope; he is the only man I ever
I lUMAN 8€HAVI0R.Augusl 1971
heard use the word phontosmogorio
in r.asual conversation. As his books
show. he is a gifted storyteller; but in
person. his tales are even more com-
pelling. because he acts out all the parts
and mimics all the voices. Once. telling
of an encounter with a Nubian student
from the Sudan during a lecture. he
leaped to his feet, put his hand on top
of his head to represent a Nubian top-
knot and dl'Opped his voice a full octave
to impersonate the man's basso.
He also leads the life of a country
squire. The Shah home. Langton House
at Langton CreP.n, a tiny hamlet nestled
in to the Kent ish countryside southeast
of Tunbridge Wells, once belonged to
Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the
Boy Scout movement. A rambling.
whitewashed. green-shuttered mansion.
it is surrounded by 50 acres of gardens
and pastureland and by the village
green. Inside. like Shah himself. it is
a subtle blend of East and West. Orien-
tal carpets, hammered brass trays and
a children's peacock swing designed
by Shah's wife contrast with a massive
desk Shah picked up in a junk shop and
an IBM Selectric typewriter.
When asked how long he had kept a
foot in both Eastern and Western worlds.
he said. "All my life." Although a resi-
dent of Britain for many years nnd !l
British subject, he was born in the East
and groomed from boyhood for his
eventua l role of building bridges be-
tween cultures. The eldest son of the
late Sil'dar Ikbal Ali Shah. one of the
legendary figures of contemporary
Middle Eastern history, he was born
nPar Simla in the Himalayns and was
raised in Afghanistan. India and Saudi
Arabia, "thus being exposed to three of
the five main cultural traditions of the
Middle Eas t." (The other two are Per-
sian and Turkish.) He never attended
school in the formal sense. ''I was ed-
ucated by the old oriental tradition
that if I needed to learn something,
someone was procured to teach it to
me," he recalls. However, his father
insisted that he learn firsthand about
the world. The young prince worked a
year as a laborer on a farm and served a
hitch in the Afghan army.
As descendants of Mohammed through
the prophet's eldest son. the family
carries considerable prestige through
the Middle East. Their influence trans-
cends national boundaries and mere
sectarian lines. Shah's father served as
an unofficial adv iser to several Middle
Eastern countries. and often carried
out diplomat ic missions between East
and West. Often the young Shah ac-
companied him, gaining access to the
highest ruling and spiritual levels in
his part of the world. The experience
stood him in good stead. Today, one of
the little-known and little-discussed
aspects of his life is to serve as
adviser to several African and Asian
governments.
As Shah was growing up. he also
adhered to the Sufi stricture that every
Sufi must earn his own way . "We have
a sense of priorities," Shah says. "To
belong to the human community is es-
sential. We say, 'If you cannot earn your
livelihood. go out and learn how and
then become a Sufi."' Shah's education
had given him a thorough grounding in
literature. history and economics but
no profession; he chose to enter the
world of business and finance. He es-
tablished three successful electronics
£i•·ms. a carpet factory and a publish-
ing house and still serves as chairperson
of each. This record also gave him entree
to London financial and social circles.
"Many of my sober business acquain-
tances would never believe I am to be
bracketed with wh~t they ~.;onsider the
guru phenomenon," he says. laughing.
"They know me too well to believe that."
As Shah poured a cup of tea from a
glittering heirloom tea service, I asked
him how the campaign to familiari:te
the West w ith Sufi principles was faring.
He lit one of his favorite small cigars
befor·e o·esponding.
"The people of the West arc starving
in the midst of plenty," he began. '"!'hey
have made all these discoveries ahout
human behavior but t hey have not ''e-
lated them to their own behavior. And
un til they in tegrate this knowledge. I
don't know if we can help them. It may
be aoo years before t hey have properly
absorbed this knowledge.
"People can learn from one another
which att itudes aren't scientific. which
attitudes don't work. It's just a ques-
t ion of absorption. It's no use just
reading about behavior in a paperback
and then throwing it away and reaching

for the next paperback, or reading to
answer questions in an examination. or
to torture your friends with a few gim-
micks. like 'You hav~ an Oedipus com-
plex' or 'That's a defense mechanism.'
"The potential is there," he continued.
"There's an old Sufi story that's rele-
vant tc.> that. An old traditional Su fi
used to dress his disciples in patch-
work cloaks and have them carry a
beggar's bowl and repeat certain for-
mulae in order to concentra te their
minds. He recommended that they eat
mulberries off a certain tree.
"One day somebody said to him.
'Suppose yo~.> went to a country where
they didn't have patchwork, and you
couldn't dress your disciples in cloaks.
Suppose the seed coconut from which
beggars' bowls at·e tradit ionally made
was not available. Suppose mulberries
were considered unlucky and suppose
these repetitions which you require
wet·e considered socially undesirable.
What would you do under those cir-
cumstances?' And he sa id. 'Ah. well. if
At right, Shah ond one uf his daughters on
tlu: wounds uf Langton House. Below. Shah
b·urrovndcd by morionellcs of the prom1ncnt
characters jn Sufi tofas.
I were undet' those circumstances. I
would have to get myself a totally dif-
ferent kind of disciple.'
"The challenge now is embodied in
the Sufi tradition that you must teach
people in the way that they can learn.
The West has the requirements to learn,
hut nontraditional approaches-that
is. nonoriental approaches-mus t l>e
made.
''You have to come to certain r.onclu -
sions in order to do anything at all.
For example. say that you- or the com-
munity at large. or Western society-
concludes that r.ontemporary physics
shows that it is unlikely or impossible
that one will be able to exceed a certain
velocity of travel in space. so that our
galaxy is closed to us. And as we want
to go farthe•· there must be some other
way discovered in order to slip through
the imprisonment of these dimensions
of time and space.
"You, or your society. would have
arrived at that conclusion through your
investigations into the physical sci-
ences. An Oriental might ha ve arrived
at an identical conclusion l>y some
other route. But you two would be in
prcciscl y the s~mc posture if you decided
to start your fut·ther investigation uy
some metaphysical method or non-
material mcthon. You'd h~vc Mrivcd at
the same jumpoff puint by different
4
routes, but you would be able to addrcs~
the same sort of problem.
"That's what I'm interested in doing
in the West." he concluded. "Or rather.
in the modet·n Western culture that now
covers so much of the world that people
of my generation in the Middle East
are in fact often indistinguishable from
Europeans."
According to Shah, he had dabbled in
writing ever since his youth and. i:n
fact. had produced a widely acclaimed
book. De~tiuotion Mecca, In 1957; hut
the idea or a book on the Sufis did not
tAke flower until he was past 40. Graves
was one of those who encouraged him
to "write for th e natural Sufis every-
where," but. Shah says modestly. "I did
not yet feel I had the proper literary
skills." In addition. severa l other de-
velopments were necessary before the
West was ready for a book on Eastern
mysticism. The East had to live down
the Rudyard Kipling view of mystics
as freaky savages who slept on nails
and charmed cobr&s: and the West had
to accept that human beings were con-
ditioned into limited ways of thinking
that obscured their humanity within,
rather than creatures of free will. Shah
places the Korean War as a landmark.
Discovering that American fliers could
he "conditioned in •·everse" by their
captors. Amcric.:an social scientists
were rorced to acknowledge and to
study the whole conditioning process.
This development. Sh~h believes, n.ot
only explains B.F. Skinner but the re-
vtval of Pavlov. "If I had discussed how
man has been conditioned away frum
his origins before 1950.'' Shah says.
"I would simply have been put into the
same box with Pavlov."
A more •·ecent impetus was given
Sufism by Ornstein's work into the bi-
lateral specialization of the brain. For
lllJMAN RF.ItAYIOR. i\ui(U$t H~77 2?
the first time, science supported the
Sufi view that learning could be achieved
both sequentially ami holistically.
"After Ornstein's work, we were able
to introduce what we were saying in .a
framework not available before. because
there was no scientific word for it,''
Shah says. "Previously we had to say
that our way was not scientific. bu t
artistic-and those words were much
too loaded. Now we can t alk about the
left brain and the right brain and it is
respectable, in th e sense that people
will listen to it.
"It also helps us to explain by anal·
ogies derived from Ornstein's work
what happens to human thinking sys·
terns once rooted in human beings and
the human community and how our
way d iffers from-and resembles-
other ways of thinking. It can be put
down almost diagrammatically, and it
does help a person looking into it to
understand: whatever is this man talk-
ing about? Whet·e does he place h imself
or what he is saying in the pattern of
human thought?"
When Shah began to wl'ite, he reached
back into his childhood anrl brought
At righl. Shah and his daughter studying
Persian books. Below. performing the duties
of country squiro. Shah oversees the gar·
dmoer's work in the hot lwuse.
forth literally hundreds of simp le folk-
t ales he had learned from servants,
from village story tellers. from Persian
literature and "just out of the air." (In
fact. they are so commonplace that one
Turkish publisher refused to publish
one of Shah's collections, declaring,
"It is unbelievable to me that anyone
could make a book of nothing more t han
he could collect from the lips of peasants
while touring the villages of Anatolia.")
Some witty, some epigrammatic, some
I lUMAN OEIIAVIOR. Augusl 1977
poin ted, the now-famous tales are in-
terspersed in Shah's books wi th his
own reflections and gathered into an·
thologies of their own. Many of them
concern Mulla (Master] Nasrudin, a
kind of Middle Eas tern Everyman who
is sometimes court jester, some times
cracker-barrel philosopher, sometimes
village sage and sometimes buffoon. He
combines native shrewd ness and in·
sight in a way that helps him sec to the
heart of a s ituat ion tha t his more analyt-
ical "betters" cannot. He also illustrates.
in exaggerated form. the kind of fal-
lacious thinking that hobbles the more
sop hist icated.
When asked to tell some of his favorite
Nasrudin stories and to explain their
rule in Sufism, he offered several:
"Nasrurlin was throwing handfuls of
bread all round his house. 'What are
you doing?' someone asked.
'"Keep ing the tigers away.'
"'But there are no tigers around here.'
'"Exactly. Effective: isn't it?'"
Another tale recalls the time Nasrudin
went in to the shop of a man who sold
all kinds of miscellaneous things.
"Have you leather?" Nasrudin asked.
"Yes."
"And nails?"
"Yes."
"And dye?"
"Yes."
"Then why don 't you make yourself a
pair of boots?"
Once Nasrudin was called upon to
preach a sermon. From the pulpit, he
asked the congo•egAtion: "Oo ynu know
what I am going to preAch abou t'?"
"No," they replied.
"In that case," he said, "it would tHke
too long to explain." And he went home.
Next day he ascended the pulpit and
a~ke<.l the same question.
"Yes," the people said this t ime, de·
!ermined to put him on the spot.
"In that case," said Nasrudin, "there
is no need for me to say more." And he
went home.
Yet again the following d~c~y he put
the same question. "Do you know what
I am going to preach about?"
But now the congregation was o·eady
to corner him. "Some of us do and some
of us don't," they answered.
"In that case," said Nas rudin, "let
those who know tell those who don't.''
Although each of these tales has a
punch line, Shah explained. it also t:on-
ta ins a teaching moral and •:an be ex·
a mined on many levels for illumination
of human behavior. Nasrudin's sermon,
for example, rlepir.ts the Sufi helief that
theo·e can he no tear.hing to those com-
pletely ignorant. none to those who
profess to know all the answers and
that the best tear.hing method is when
one who has learned by experience
teaches ano ther.

"Some witty, some pointed, the
now-famous Sufi tales are interspersed in Shah's
books with his own reflections."
Shah considers the ta les an ideal way
to communicate with the West. "One
way we use them is as a sort of a test,"
he said. "For instance. we often use the
old Sufi tale of the sands. A little river
has to cross a desert, you see, and it
runs into the sand. II fi nds it's becoming
a marsh. So the wind says to it. 'Come
with me and 1 will carry you over the
desert .' But the little river says. 'No, no.
1 can't! I'll lose my idenlily! I refuse to
be turned into water vapor!' So the
wind says. 'Well. all right. But look at
you. You're becoming '' marsh. You
have t o decide whether you wish to
bec~ome c) marsh or become water vapor.'
So after a great deal of consideration
the river Hnally yields up to the wind.
which carries it into the high mountains
and drops it in the form of rain. where·
after it continues as a river.
"Now when you tell this tale. some
people-crude. barbaric types-see it
as a sort of commercial. The guru is
asking his disciples to surrender them·
selves to him and he will carry them
safely over the marsh. which is death or
some other condition in which they are
goi ng to stagnate or putrefy. Other
peop le react in a quite different way.
They say. 'Oh. isn't that a beautiful
s tory!' And they talk about nature and
the transposition of substances and
ecology and so on.
"People who don't react in either or
these ways can then use the story for
further training of their hemispheres.
as il were. They don't have the hangup
that they think you are trying to con-
vince them of something. or that they
desperately want to be convinced.
"What makes it very difficult in deal-
ing with these stories is that people
want to know, 'Is it a t est or is it a teach-
ing?' and 'How am l supposed to react to
it?' 'At what point does it become per-
ceptible to me what it really means?'
Which is rather like sayin'g, 'Is a house
for eating in or sleeping in or blow ing
up?' It's all those things. But the so-
called linear mind always want s you to
'get to the point.' A great deal of Sufism
involves learning not in the sequence
the Western mind expects to learn it.
That is not acceptable to the sequential
thinker who is incapable of thinking in
any other way.''
The value or these tales is often mis-
understood. Shah said. Like Christ's
parables. they are designed to enable
the listener t o hold in his mind a kind or
structure to which he can relate philo-
sophical or other considerations. "That's
why there are twn men and a dancing
bear. or two mysterious dervishes."
S hah says. Because the stories are often
funny. they are regarded as slight or
insignificant by scholars-"It is not
my discovery alone that academ ics do
not encourage humor in what they take
to be serious areas." In fact. they are
the very core of Sufi teaching.
"T.he Sufi people.'' Shah explains.
"have been held in very grea t esteem
while armed with these stories and
using them all the time for nearly a
thousand years. They have built them
into some of the great class ics of the
East. They are universally revered as
classics. Some of these people have
been people or great gravit y. grea t mys-
tical attainments and great discoverers
of scientific things- the very flower of
various civilizations. It hardly seems
likely when you approach it rationally
that such people would have gone to
such lengths to prepare and maintain
these stories. even building them into
major facets of their thought. if they
were a sideline. something old men in
their dotage mumbled to each other.
The stories are a n integral part of Sufi
teaching. If the Sufis are to be respected
-as they enormously are-then surely
one or their major teaching instruments
must be given some considerat ion in
the light of their status and achieve-
ments.''
The role of the teacher in Sufism is
also often misinterpreted. "T here is no
Sufism without a teacher," Shah h;)s
w ritten. But the teaching role is quite
different from that of the gurus in other
sects. whose antics Shah dismisses as
filled with "chanti ng. ritual and phan-
tasmagoria." "A teacher is somcono)
who is able to connect instructionally
with you," Shah says. "He need not be
physically present. You don't even
have to know him. He doesn't have to
have a white beard and sanda ls. In "
sense, a teacher need not even be a
person.
"1 was once walking with a group of
people includi ng a spiritual teacher,
and someone asked him. 'What is a
-6
gu ru?' And he pointed to a stone in the
road and said. 'Look. if l fall ove r that
stone and I learn from that event to look
where I'm going. that stone is my guru.'
A guru is an instrument. The t eaching
role should be an instrument. not an
opportunity for theat er. no t a source of
self-grat ification. A Sufi teacher does
what he can to produce what he has to.
He teaches what he can in a way students
can learn it.
"We see teach ing as a system of inter-
action. In the ordinary course of events,
people persis t in certain courses to
achieve something. Sometimes they
learn by experience that they can't do
it. Say. climbing a wall. They find they
can't climb the wall. so they have to
adjust . Should I get a ladder? Is it worth
cli mbing? Are there other ways to get
over it? By the interplay of themselves
and the wall and their knowledge and
experience. they learn.
"A lot of people in esoteric circles.
that is. philosophical and psychological
circles. ignore this fact. They tend to
look for a sort of Eureka! system, a
golden key. They look at our stories.
for example. for what mysterious depths
and teachings are in them. or fo r what
golden key they might be able t o worry
out of them. in spite or the fact that the
stories themselves often illustrate the
interplay between the people a nd their
experience and the teacher or the cir-
cumst ances. w hich is very sim il ar to
the person trying to climb the wall.
"There's an old Sufi story about a
young man who set off to receive illumi-
nation from an old teacher who lived in
a remote cave on the top of a mountain.
He was an old man with a long white
beard dressed in a white shroud. a sort
of hermit. When the young man. after
great privation and enormous difficul-
ties. reached that cave and al most col -
lapsed in front of him. he said. 'I have
come all this way. and had all this
trouble. and I want yo u to teach me
illumination.' But the old man said.
'Certainly not.' The young fellow begged
and begged. but t he old man simply
said. 'No. 1can' t teach you that.' Finally
the old man said. 'Go.'
"So t he young man went back down
the mountain track . Almost at the bot-
tom. he looked back and saw a white
figure and he realized that the o ld man
IIUMAN BEHAVIOR.. IW8U&I J977 29